JRFH and PSIA

Friday was Jump Roper For Heart at ACA. They get to wear their field day/trip shirts for this event and whatever shorts they want. I also wore my "field day" shirt (I put it in quotations because the chances of me going to field day this year are about as good as me growing to 6 ft. tall tomorrow). But, I digress. Since I had the camera there, I asked Jackie to take a picture of all of us in our shirts. Here we are in my "habitat".
Now, you have all read about "Becky Hale" cookies on this blog, many times. Well, her cupcakes are on the border of being just as good. They are certainly just as pretty. She made these in honor of one of a teachers' birthday. Aren't they beautiful? Almost too pretty to eat...almost. Yes, that red thing on there is an m&m decorated like a ladybug. AMAZING!!!! Becky you outdid yourself on these.

Here's Sadie Jumping Rope for Heart.

And Madeline.

Today was PSIA. It stands for Private School something that starts with an "I" and something that starts with an "A". I think the "I" and "A" should stand for Intercranial Athletics.

Did you ever see the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher"? How the parents are all there during the chess matches and the kids are stressing, etc.? This was just as intense. The kids are all sitting around in their school groups getting that last minute studying in and all the parents are looking around, sizing up the competition (I am guessing that's what they were doing) and encouraging their children.

Sadie did Art Memory. That is where they memorize famous paintings (well, not so famous like Mona Lisa or anything, I had never heard of any of these paintings) and the artist. They are shown some of those paintings and they have to know the name and artist. Sadie placed 6th. I am very proud of her.

This was a surreal experience for me. I walked into a situation I knew NOTHING about which hasn't happened in probaby at least two years. Most of my activities in the past two years have been either ones I've done before or ones I've planned. I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the planning, orgainizing, recruiting, teaching, signing in or anything else for PSIA. Frankly it was a little overwhelming.

I did judge two events. The first was storytelling for 1st graders. They are read a story and then they come to another room with judges (ME) and retell the story. They can make it their own or tell it like they heard it or a combination. As I sat there and listened to the various tellings of the same story, I thought "This is something Madeline should do". She would excel at that. I will encourage her next year to do it, but I won't force it.

The other event was Prose for 6th graders which is a little like the storytelling but they choose a book before today and put their spin on it. I'm not sure if they read it verbatim or if they can paraphrase but we heard some good stories. They are supposed to emote, etc. It was very interesting.

All in all, it's been a good week.